As this is a blog and not a book, I’m breaking up my analysis into categories. The first topic I want to address is the deceptive nature of the Askthebigot website.

What led up to me researching, identifying and then exposing the identity of its author, Katy Faust, was twofold. Firstly it was a launchpad for anonymous anti-lgbt propaganda. Secondly there was the obviously suspicious nature of the site. The first thing any wordpress user notes when they arrive at Askthebigot is there’s something that sets it apart entirely from all other wordpress blogs. The overwhelming majority of her commenters and supporters are not wordpress users. Their screen names don’t link back to gravatar, profile pages or the commenter’s own blog. A red flag as wordpress is first and foremost a blogging community, made up first and foremost of bloggers.

So I had to ask myself, what’s going on here? Who are these people? Where are they coming from? How did they end up here? And the more I observed the development of the comments the more it became clear that the entire operation was a racket.

If you enjoyed The Mentalist or White Collar, you’ll enjoy what comes next. The deception on Askthebigot attempts to (ab)use a psychological concept called social proof, “where people assume the actions of others in an attempt to reflect correct behavior for a given situation.” In this version this method uses a claque, something that was popular in the times of Nero and still operates at the Bolshoi today. Here’s a visual:

The accomplices set the tone for the deception. This can be done in a variety of ways. It can even be done mechanically. Remember the canned laughter of 80’s and 90’s sitcoms? An obvious variety of manipulation. It reassures the viewer that what he’s watching is funny and cues him in on what he should think is funny, all at the same time. The problem is claque manipulation isn’t always benign. It can even be dangerous. In the 19th century claques blackmailed playwrights threatening to boo their productions off the stage if they didn’t pay up. At the Bolshoi they can destroy or make a dancer’s career.

The Askthebigot apparatus uses a two-pronged scheme. First it reinforces consensus within the group. That’s the backbone of cults and other authoritarian structures. In that sense it functions as an echo chamber. Claims are made and repeated, then re-repeated and eventually some variation of the claim is perceived as fact by those within the group. Evidence that discredits their ideology is simply ignored.

The second part is they use this fabricated consensus to propagandize their ideology. Anyone arriving at that blog gets the very false impression that there is a near absolute societal consensus in line with their propaganda.

When a dissenter posts a comment he/she is mobbed. At first this was done in a somewhat haphazard manner and mainly by garden variety right wing Christians who were in contact with Faust. This changed on October 6th, 2014 with the publication of this post. Behind the scenes an anti-gay jihadist militia was born. You can find some of their names listed together here.

From that point on the mobbing was very well orchestrated. The charismatic leader remains ‘above the fray’, leaving the dirty work to the others. The shill commenters take on roles/personas. One pretends they’re interested in science/biology but only actually promotes obscure claims that are unsupported by established science. Another takes the I’m friendly and curious angle, all the while feeding traditional anti-gay stereotypes into the discussion to reinforce prejudices.Another takesa pseudo-feminist angle and attempts to turn the discussion on its head by proposing that supporting lgbt rights is an attempt by white males to oppress women- I know, that last one takes some serious acrobatics.

Fortunately in the age of information this sort of scam isn’t far-reaching. Their claims can be discredited in the time it takes to do a google search. That’s not to say that what they do is harmless. It absolutely isn’t. Their aim is to create a hostile environment for LGBT individuals and that has serious and verifiable consequences. LGBT teens are at higher risk for suicidal thoughts, behaviors, suicide attempts, and suicide itself. Risk for dating violence is higher, risk for rape is higher. Risk of drug use and homelessness is higher. What Faust does with her cohorts is create an environment that fosters and promotes the very sort of propaganda and discrimination that increases those risks, foments marginalization and ultimately justifies violence against members of the LGBT community.

Coming soon: Part II where I’ll focus on the profiles of some of the Askthebigot commenters and their personal motivations. Namely:

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Wow! A truly wild ride.
I have often wondered about a site that is filled with comments by bloggers with no blog or gravatar pic except those funny monster’ old-style space invader type pics
I have come across a couple like this.

Anyone who blogs on wordpress knows it just doesn’t work that way. Especially those of us who have been doing it for a while. In my first year doing the Pink Agendist I had tons of traffic and non-blogger comments were a tiny minority.

I don’t think so. Insanity is part of a mutual appreciation society. All the people who comment have blogs and they traffic is two-way. It’s just a standard blog community. The weirdness of Bigot is that most of the people who jump all over you when you comment have no blogs, or dead blogs. And remember right back the beginning it was mainly her editor, her editor’s husband and Bigot’s husband who jumped in to argue. We only found out who they were when Pink started digging. There are loads more.

That’s a good way of putting it: mutual admiration club. She does, however, step aside when the attacks start coming in… and she censors my comments, but not others, falsely shaping how the thread appears.

Message control is terribly important to those people. Your comments are a threat to a system from which she measures her own self-worth. She thinks her goodness is dependent on that system being valid. If you take that away, she’s lost.

It’s a bit rude. This last post I was hammered by people asking for “proof,” so i provided it. Inanity wouldn’t allow those comments. Quite childish, really. Oh well, she has to sleep with herself at night, not me.

This is largely the approach of another “charismatic leader” in the same (broadly speaking) army, Ryan T. Anderson, about whom I’ve blogged a few times (and will again). He also loves to play a victim (as Pinky pointed out in the second linked post at the top, the Fausts did as well).

I am familiar with the “work” of Edelman and ROL. I look forward to the continuation of this series.

I’m constantly surprised by just how evil some people can be towards others. I know I shouldn’t be. These places abuse the right to be called churches and should be turned over to homeless charities.
A great expose (Imagine the accent over the last E) thanks.
Hugs

If they are in the United States it would be difficult to do much legally as the first ammendment to our constitution provides for freedom of speech. It would take some sort of imminent threat to trigger a legal response. The more successful route would be to bring pressure through WordPress or anyone that might be seen as supporting the site.

Thank you for your kind response. By ‘imminent threat’ I take it to mean some incitement to violence rather than any purely psychological offence. It seems a rather dubious distinction does it not? As Mr.M. points out in his article, the fallout from psychological damage can result in a self-imposed violence. Yes, I agree with your means of resistance, and applaud the author for his efforts here.

You’re right and fortunately the law reflects that in certain parts of Western Europe. Spain and France have included homophobia in pre-existing laws regarding discrimination. The Spanish version is better because they also prohibit the incitement of discrimination.

The Inspector Gadget blog had a lot of police officers complaining about their jobs, without having their own blogs. It was taken down because the police authorities did not like being mocked. And there are a great deal of homophobes and heterosexists in the US churches, who would have no respect for peer-reviewed science- quoting studies from the 1960s, making Creationist arguments, that sort of thing. Katy got a certain notoriety from her muscling in on Obergefell v Hodges. I blogged about a forum, and someone came from there and commented, who has posted four times a day there since March. People find these things addictive.

I think the blog and the people are monstrous, but there are such people about. I feel they could coalesce around such a poisonous hole.

And I get far more views than comments, many through searches. Probably a majority of my readers have no blog.

Yes, that ‘muscling in’ was very interesting. Connecting the dots between the players has been amusing. We find the same names popping up. NOM, Witherspoon etc. For profit hate groups on one side and minions desperately trying to get on that gravy train.

For the record, I truly am curious. I don’t remember how I came across Katy’s blog, but I’m not from her church. I didn’t even know she was affiliated with one. If I have anti-gay prejudices it’s from not enough interaction with gays. (Which I was trying to correct by asking your opinions and getting to know you.) I was a fundamental Christian for 20 years, you develop a firm mindset after only knowing people who share your same opinions for that long.

Wow. Super interesting. I’ve run into other groups that operate as you describe above – the main one I can think of was a supposed Christian group that hated Muslims. There was the leader who stayed above the fray, a supposed atheist who would rather (they said) be with Christians who saw the Muslim threat than with atheists who didn’t, and a bunch of toadies. There were definite personalities within the group, but none of them could be identified through clicking on their links.

Regarding your question on ethics over there, I’ll answer over here so we don’t get hijacked by the crazy man again.

We’ve got centuries of human development and studies on ethics. For the first time in history society aims to create protections for women, children and other minorities. Finally we’re even realizing we should protect animals.
Just 100 years ago it was still legal to exploit children and make them work in factories. During the first 38 years of the 20th century almost every measure to protect children via legislation or via the courts failed. Protections were only introduced by Roosevelt in the ’38 Fair Labour Standards Act.

All that is to show that religion didn’t help us be ethical and do the right thing regarding children, or women’s rights, or worker’s rights. We had to sit down as a society and ask ourselves the tough questions. What is fair? What is good for us as a group and how do we balance that with what is good for us as individuals? We only stop doing terrible things, like slavery, when we’re prepared to answer those questions.

All good points. Thanks for being so willing to share your thoughts with me, I didn’t know if you would, seeing as I am from “the other side” and all. I’m challenging my old ideas. After 20 years as a Christian I could no longer reconcile the immense amount of suffering and injustice in this world with an all-powerful and loving God. I desperately wanted to, life seems so pointless without a creator who loves us. I grew up having absolutely zero self-worth and feeling completely unloved, so when I found out about a God who loved me and that I had so much worth to him, I grabbed on and formed my identity on how I believed God saw me. I finally felt loved and worthy. So to abandon that God for me is a real loss that grieves me. I’m trying to figure out how we all matter in a world without God. I must warn you I am still very conservative, but I hope that doesn’t stop us from talking. I’m not a debater and I hate conflict, which is why I had to leave ATB. I do like sharing my views but I listen with the intent to understand, not to debate. But some people love it, so who am I to judge? I just want everyone to understand each other and get along. I’m a hopeless peacemaker. I would love for you and Katy to reconcile, because I think you’re both good at heart.
Thanks for responding here. That guy was relentless and I found it a bit disturbing how much time and energy he put into stalking me trying to debate with me. Probably just a well-intentioned guy but holy cow!! Annoying!!!

Are you planning on writing? That’s a very good way to organise ideas. In many ways I’m sort of conservative too. You probably saw I was accused on ATB of being a white wealthy man… which I guess means I’m super-duper evil. But I’m also gay, I believe in social equality, and I make a big effort not to be racist. I smile and say hello to ALL Muslims, who probably think I’m crazy- but anyway, you can have a lot of fun on wordpress. There are some very interesting and clever people. Many will answer your comments and join you on your ‘journey’. Don’t be shy.

Awesome post. Do you know if she’s using her cult as the shills? I’m asking this because it seems the comments are adequately responding to dissent, which seems to rule out using bots. But the ability of the anonymous users to perpetually and consistently mob dissenters is too coordinated to be random. I looked at a few different posts, and it’s the same behavior all around.

Having followed this from pretty much the beginning, I’m obviously interested in the review with hindsight. I think one of the key aspects you have nailed, is the ‘really nice persona’ that Katy attempts to portray (although her comments to me were always acid) to try and perpetuate the let’s be nice and patronise LGBT people. While denying them equal rights. For me, that was always the crux of it.

I don’t care how much Katy et al purported to love the whole world, while ever they denied other people the same rights they had, they lost any chance of my respect for their views. Give me one good reason why you and Mike should not get married? There isn’t one. Nor should there be.

I laughed when I re-read some of my comments. I obviously got as annoyed then about it as I do now!

What I don’t understand is why people think it’s a ‘gay agenda’. Just look at your blog. A lot of us are in heterosexual relationships AFAIK. Or maybe bi. Hell I don’t know! But who cares. And that’s really it. Someone else’s sexuality is Not. Your. Business. Equality is though.

One of the foundational comments that created me is something I heard as a very little little boy. A group of feminists including my grandmother and the queen of modern feminism were discussing politics and my grandmother stood up, swirled her Campari and said, “You’re all wrong. Gender shouldn’t be up for discussion. I am a citizen of this country, and all citizens are equal. That’s the only approach that binds us all together and changes the world.”

Go, Granny, Go! My foundational comment was my Dad’s mantra, “Never claim for yourself rights you deny to others.” And in America, citizenship isn’t the issue: rights extend to (no, are inherent in) ALL people. That’s the theory … recognizing and protecting those rights … that has been the battle.
Great discussion! Tricksters should be exposed.

I’m actually thinking all her commentators are from her church though, I don’t think she recruited them. They are overwhelmingly Christian and it makes sense that she would tell her church about her blog. I don’t think either one of you are as evil as the other side thinks;)

I don’t think Katy is evil. I think she fell in with a bad crowd. I’ve listened to a recording of her husband’s ideas, I’ve talked about life with her. I admire how she took on the adoption of her youngest child.
I just think that making discrimination the centre-point of one’s life is a bad idea. Harmful all around.

I was drawn to Katy through her stance on putting children first, having grown up with liberal divorced parents who only thought of themselves and what was “right” for them, with absolutely no regard for the effects it would have on me. I don’t know anything about her church though. It wasn’t her faith that interested me. I understand your discrimination stance though. From what I understand though, her concern is ART and that SSM would increase that.

I agree with you 100%. I think it’s outrageous that parents have the gall to say ‘my children are the most important part of my life’ and then the father marries his secretary and the mother has an affair with the tennis teacher. My problem with Katy is I’m not seeing her propose anything that actually benefits or protects children except for discriminating gays. The vast majority of children are born to straight parents- the kind that have a 50% divorce rate. Focusing on gays is dishonest.

Same sex marriage has been high on the political agenda here recently, unfortunately we have a very religious Prime Minister who is blocking any changes in the law to allow it.

Imagine my disappointment this morning when I see that Faust was on TV here sharing her objections from her perceived position of authority as a child of lesbians. We don’t need her kind muddying the waters of discussion!

That’s payback! You sent Rupert Murdoch to our side of the planet, now you get Faust in yours! Don’t despair, maybe customs will get her for smuggling sh*t into Australia. I’ve watched that show on tv, they’re very thorough.

Ha! Afternoon news update… “She wouldn’t have done this interview but she was outed by a gay blogger”. Looks like you got a mention Pink. I might actually look at the interview now rather than just read the headlines. Then again, she’ll make me mad and I’m having a good day…. 😉

I’ve got my fingers crossed you’re right. That’s certainly been my experience of Australians. At the same time France is also highly secular and there was overwhelming support for gay marriage, but the anti-gay jihad promoted by Faust’s team did incredible damage. It’s being fixed, but they were vicious and real people got hurt.

I’m not sure the show will actually challenge her too much, after all, they did invite her on. You might be better off contacting the Greens leader, Richard Di Natale who is going to be on the show. A quick Google tells me he might be the one with the most belief in same sex marriage on the panel that night.

There is actually some evidence for Katy’s position. It is a small sample size, but there is evidence that some children brought up for some of their time as children by queer couples are permanently damaged. They exhibit extreme obsessive behaviour and loathing for gay people, and a desire to sabotage every gay relationship. They claim their mental condition is a direct result of being parented by gays.

“Another takes a pseudo-feminist angle and attempts to turn the discussion on its head by proposing that supporting lgbt rights is an attempt by white males to oppress women- I know, that last one takes some serious acrobatics.”

I’ve taken some time to think on this sentance, and I haven’t the faintest idea what that argument would look like. Do you have some basic info on what they’re talking about?

I’ve been reading some of their writing today, they give off the impression of being seriously disturbed individuals (without exception.) The most disturbed are Rivka Edelman and Janna Darnelle. When not borderline incoherent, they’re full fledged incoherent.